SUMMER 2021
A Test of Faith
Loyola’s Desegregation Pioneers
2021 COMMENCEMENT CELEBRATION MEET THE PROVOST
Loyola Welcomes Dr. Tanuja Singh
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16 A Test of Faith COVER STORY
African-American students at Loyola in the era of segregation
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Know & Tell News Roundup Courage in Print: Eric Eyre ’87 The Loyola Effect: Loyola Loyal Day Class Notes Young Alumnus/a of the Year: Madeline Janney ’16
31 How Loyola Shaped Me:
A Conversation with Provost Tanuja Singh
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President’s Message
Douglas Hammel, J.D. ’00
32 College Roundup
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Celebrating the Class of 2021
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Raising the Bar in Law Competition
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DO THIS Feast of St. Ignatius
SUMMER 2021 Vol. 31, No. 1 Editor Tonya Jordan-Loht
Celebrate the Feast of St. Ignatius on July 31. Learn more here: alumni.loyno.edu/ignatius
Send Us Your Wolf Tracks
New job? New baby? New spouse? We want to share in your joy! Send us your wedding, birth, and job announcements here: magazine@loyno.edu
Continue Your Education
Check out Loyola’s offerings in Professional and Continuing Studies here: pacs.loyno.edu
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Designer Stephanie Moody ’08 University Photographer Kyle Encar Contributing Writers Zontré City ’21 Angelique Dyer ’11 Ken Garfield Patricia Murret Justin Nystrom, Ph.D. Chief Communications Officer Rachel Hoormann ’94 Executive Director of Development Stephanie Hotard ’04, M.B.A. ’10 Assistant Vice President for Alumni Engagement Laurie Eichelberger Leiva ’03, Ed.D. Vice President for University Advancement Chris Wiseman ’88, Ph.D. University President Tania Tetlow, J.D.
Correction: In the Fall 2020 issue of LOYNO Magazine, the last name of the 2020 Ignatius Award winner Sarah Zoghbi was misspelled. The Editorial Board apologizes for this oversight. LOYNO Magazine is published twice per year. View online at loyno.edu/magazine Send address changes and correspondences to: Loyola University New Orleans Office of Alumni Engagement 7214 St. Charles Avenue, Box 909 New Orleans, LA 70118 phone 504.861.5454 email alumni@loyno.edu Submission of stories and photographs are welcome. Loyola University New Orleans admits students of any race, creed, religion, color, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability status, marital status, and citizenship status and does not discriminate in the administration of its educational policies, admission policies, scholarship and loan programs, or athletic and other school-administered programs.
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Dear Loyola community, I love reading Loyola history (and not just because it’s interwoven with old photographs of various Tetlows serving as faculty or playing football). As I read this issue’s cover story, I find myself thinking about my predecessors who served as president, the kinds of decisions they faced, and the missed opportunities. I think about the students who never came to Loyola because excluding them was the unjustly accepted way of doing things then. Would I have seen the right path as Loyola’s leaders eventually did? Would I have made some of the same stumbles? How do we know what blinds us today? There are some who find looking back on history a self-righteous exercise in 20/20 hindsight, but I think it’s far more interesting and valuable than that. When we really look back, we see people just like us struggling to balance pragmatic realities against moral principles. We understand that progress is not inevitable, that it actually requires brave choices, made with incomplete information in the face of daunting opposition. Our predecessors at Loyola faced those moral tests, especially the ultimate moral test of racial segregation. Sometimes they acted with courage and moral clarity, and sometimes not. I learn much from their struggles. Most of my predecessors understood the right moral answer but were terrified of the obstacles—the powerful opposition of the community, the potential drops in enrollment and alumni support. The Jesuit community itself was
divided, across the same dinner table, half pushing for action in the name of the Gospels and half urging restraint and caution. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it is that moral choices in life are rarely labeled “heroes turn this way, villains the other.” The most critical of decisions come in the form of a thousand tiny daily tests, seemingly mundane, of faith and courage. We learn more when we really put ourselves in the shoes—not just of the heroes like Srs. Clare and Agnes Marie described in these pages—but of those who made the wrong choices. We gain the humility necessary to acknowledge our own blind spots. We gain resolve to see through the fog of denial and get it right next time, to think about how our grandchildren will look back at our own heroism or failure. My friend Sybil Morial has described to me what it felt like to graduate from Boston University and come home to apply to Loyola for graduate school, only to be turned away at the door. I think often about the pain we caused her by sending her away, and what Loyola gave up by losing her and so many thousands of others. I also think about how recent that was. Loving Loyola, really loving it, means learning from our mistakes as well, because otherwise we are doomed to repeat them. Today, I look out on a student body that reflects the glorious diversity of this generation of Americans: half students of color, a third who are the first in their families to go to college, from backgrounds urban and rural, poor and privileged.
Students flock here because of that diversity, and they take advantage of the opportunity it provides. In a national poll of 382 student bodies about how inclusive their colleges are, how much they actually interact across lines of class and race, Loyola came in 7th in the nation. But, as always, we have more work to do. We continue to teach our students the clear instructions of the catechism, that judging people based on race, gender, religion, or poverty is “incompatible with God’s design.” We work to make everyone feel welcome, no matter what their beliefs, but also to make it clear that students owe that same obligation to welcome each other, to listen to each other with open hearts, to learn from each other’s differences. We also strive to make our own institution better reflect real meritocracy. (If you want to check on our plans and our progress, see diversity.loyno.edu/equity-glance/ initiatives.) Loyola has overcome so many obstacles in its history, from hurricanes to this second pandemic in a century. We achieve that with resolve and with humility, with purpose and discernment. We strive for the magis because we know we can always do better. For the greater glory of God.
Tania Tetlow, J.D. University President SUMMER 2021 | loyno
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know&tell Loyno news worth howling about
2020 Grammy Award winner!
Loyola saxophone instructor Jason Mingledorff and his band, the critically acclaimed New Orleans Nightcrawlers, won the
2020 Grammy Award for Best Regional Roots Album for their album Atmosphere. Mingledorff teaches group and private saxophone instruction in the century-old School of Music and Theatre Arts within Loyola’s acclaimed College of Music and Media and is currently one of the most versatile and in-demand saxophonists in New Orleans.
Loyola students in the College of Business can now access the new Bloomberg Terminal in the Carlos M. Ayala Stock Trading Room, an on-campus trading facility designed to support students as they prepare for professional careers in business and finance. The Bloomberg Terminal is software technology that provides real-time and historical data, market moving news, and analytics to help financial professionals worldwide make informed investment decisions. The university’s subscription to the Bloomberg Terminal will serve as a resource for both students and professors, reinforcing classroom theory while allowing professors to further their own research. Loyola students will have the opportunity to train and become Bloomberg Certified as well.
Holocaust Day of Remembrance In partnership with the Loyola College of Arts and Sciences and the Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans, the university hosted a Holocaust Day of Remembrance virtual event featuring Pieter
Kohnstam, Holocaust survivor and childhood neighbor of Anne Frank. The presentation, in Spanish with simultaneous translation into English, allowed Kohnstam to share his compelling story of fleeing Amsterdam for Buenos Aires. His talk was presented in conjunction with the Loyola Honors seminar, “In Quarantine with Anne Frank,” taught by Professor Naomi Yavneh-Klos of the Department of Languages and Cultures. This undergraduate seminar incorporates lessons from the Holocaust into contemporary approaches to combat intolerance, hatred, and systemic racism.
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Howl! Gabrielle Garcia Loyola senior
and junior Zoe Stambaugh stand proudly among the four Louisiana students and 900 students nationwide to win a
prestigious Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship. Garcia, a theatre and
Gabrielle Garcia
Zoe Stambaugh
musical arts major, will spend the Fall 2021 semester studying at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea. Stambaugh, a graphic design student, plans to attend a summer design program in Prague, Czech Republic.
Loyola New Orleans and Ochsner Health. Loyola New Orleans has answered the call for talented health care providers and is partnering with Ochsner Health to offer a pre-licensure bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) degree that combines patient-centered clinical care with an academically-competitive liberal arts curriculum. Incoming nursing students will develop critical thinking, ethical decision-making, and communication skills in the Jesuit tradition, allowing them to grow as leaders in the healthcare industry and make a difference in their communities. Through this unique partnership, Loyola undergraduate nursing students will have access to clinical faculty and placements—eliminating a common barrier nursing programs encounter when seeking clinical experiences for their students. Ochsner has a rich history of educating the next generation of healthcare professionals and on average offers more than 2,100 clinical placements to undergraduate students from a variety of nursing programs. SUMMER 2021 | loyno
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news roundup
Law Dean Landrieu to chair ABA's Police Practices Consortium Loyola University New Orleans College of Law Dean Madeleine M. Landrieu, J.D. ’87, H ’05, will chair an upcoming legal education consortium on police practices. Formed last fall, the American Bar Association’s new Legal Education Police Practices Consortium will leverage the ABA’s expertise in developing model police practices for the more than 50 participating ABAaccredited law schools. Drawing on the geographic diversity of the ABA, the participating law schools, and their networks, the consortium will advance the widespread adoption of model police practices and initiate other projects designed to support effective policing, promote racial equity in the criminal justice system, and eliminate tactics that are racially motivated or have a disparate impact based on race.
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Barbara "Bara" Watts, new executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Community Development Loyola warmly welcomes Barbara “Bara” Watts as the new executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, a leading entrepreneurial development and teaching hub within the city. In this role, Watts leads the day-to-day operations of curricular enrichment programs, as well as strategic development and community outreach for the Center. Watts is an accomplished business executive, serial entrepreneur, and educator with a B.S. from George Washington University and an M.B.A. with a concentration in social entrepreneurship from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Her business and entrepreneurial expertise spans the arts, manufacturing, retail, film and TV, and digital technologies. As a director at MGM/UA Home Video, she focused on distribution, retail sales, and direct marketing, and she also launched a program which generated $10 million for the company in its first year.
Dr. Michelle Collins, new dean of the College of Nursing and Health Drummer Jamison Ross joins the College of Music and Media One of the biggest young names in music, Ross brings his own musical style, which redefines the sound of soul music for this era, while exploring the relationship between jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel. This position marks his first foray into university teaching, where he will share his incredible musical versatility with Loyola students.
College of Law Professor Andrea Armstrong leads study on prison deaths To address a glaring lack of transparency on deaths in prisons, jails, and detention centers, Loyola College of Law professor Andrea Armstrong has launched a new two-year project examining deaths in custody in Louisiana, which has received $411,000 in funding from Arnold Ventures. Using an innovative new model, this project will put law students on the cutting edge of research, while also providing in-depth data and analysis for policymakers, advocates, and academics. After an initial pilot in Louisiana, which has the highest incarceration rate in the U.S. and the world, team members will work with other law schools in the South to implement the project in their home states. Focusing on deaths in Louisiana jails, prisons, and detention centers between 2015 and 2020, the program will identify disparities and hot spots among local facilities and make comparisons by race/gender across facilities. All data and analyses will be publicly available for use by policymakers and advocates, as well as future study by academics.
Loyola welcomed Dr. Michelle Collins as the dean of the College of Nursing and Health in January 2021. Dr. Collins comes to Loyola from Rush University College of Nursing in Chicago, where she most recently served as professor and associate dean for academic affairs. She spent most of her academic career at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, ultimately serving as program director for the NurseMidwifery education program. As dean of the College of Nursing and Health, Dr. Collins will steer the new Loyola-Ochsner undergraduate nursing program, which welcomes its inaugural class in Fall 2021, as well as the university’s nationallyranked online graduate nursing programs. She will also oversee the Loyola Institute for Ministry and the Department of Counseling. Dr. Collins is nationally known for her work in introducing nitrous oxide ("laughing gas") back into the U.S. obstetric landscape for use in childbirth. She has published extensively on the topic and presents frequently both nationally and internationally on the subject. A fun fact is that she is a regular blogger on the national PBS site for the popular British TV series Call the Midwife.
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ALUMNI PROFILE
Courage in Print Eric Eyre ’87 BY KEN GARFIELD
he writing spark ignited T in his senior year at Loyola. After taking a feature writing class, Eric Eyre ’87 abandoned his dream of becoming a sports broadcaster to pursue a career as a newspaper reporter. More than 30 years later, having reached the pinnacle of his profession, Eyre is grateful to Loyola for showing him the way. But despite his achievements and the good he has done, the journalist who uncovered the opioid scandal that ravaged West Virginia is too focused on the next deadline to bask in success. “I never thought about anything other than to keep writing stories, keep grinding it out,” Eyre says. “I just thought all along that I was doing my job, keeping my head down, and reporting.” It is this spirit and dedication that earned Eyre journalism’s highest honor in 2017, a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. Eyre was drawn to Loyola from his home in Broad Axe, Pennsylvania, by its first-rate broadcast journalism program. “I wanted to be the next Bob Costas,” he says. But Loyola communications professor and former CBS Vietnam War correspondent Peter Kalischer inspired him to see the reward in writing about interesting people. After graduating from Loyola, Eyre landed his first job as a reporter for The Anniston Star in Alabama. The Star’s editor Michael Gordon saw the qualities that would distinguish Eyre and serve the communities he covered. “Eric was always so gentle and decent about who he was, what he did, and how he treated people,” Gordon says. “But he was absolutely fearless and unmerciful in his pursuit of the truth.”
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Eyre joined The Charleston Gazette-Mail in West Virginia as a reporter in 1998, covering the Statehouse. Over time, he learned how government works, both good and bad. He saw up close the poverty that engulfed the state. His reporting and fearlessness, as his former editor put it, led him to unravel the story of a lifetime. Starting in 2016, he chronicled the flood of opioids flowing into West Virginia—780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills—which resulted in 1,728 overdose deaths. At that time, West Virginia led the nation in drug overdose deaths. And Eyre wrote hundreds of stories explaining how drug manufacturers and distributors, physicians, pharmacies, and look-theother-way regulators were complicit in the scandal. Eyre drove in his Honda Civic to hamlets like Kermit, West Virginia, population 382, where out-of-state drug companies shipped nearly 12 million opioid pills in three years. “You pass a lot of coal trucks along the winding roads in and out of Kermit,” he says. “You could step into just about any ‘pain management clinic’ in the county and walk out with a bogus prescription in exchange for $150.” Eyre’s fearless reporting sparked outrage and changes. Drug companies paid massive fines, though some say not massive enough. The medical and law enforcement communities cracked down, and politicians jumped on the bandwagon. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for what local judges described as “courageous reporting, performed in
the face of powerful opposition.” Three years later, Eyre recounted the entire story in his criticallyacclaimed book Death In Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight Against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic published by Scribner. But life can be bittersweet. In July 2016, Eyre was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Now he deals with muscle stiffness in his face and right arm, a right foot that drags, and a right hand that shakes. But with the ferocity that won him the Pulitzer, he still runs an hour each morning. He boxes and bonds with other Parkinson’s patients, noting the upside of having this neurological disease. He’s made friends he’d never have met otherwise. With the help of his wife Lori who runs a nonprofit reading center for children, and their son Toby, 25, Eyre is determined to carry on. “I wrote an entire book while I had Parkinson’s,” he says. After he won the Pulitzer, he had to sit on his right hand during speaking events to keep it from shaking. Today, Eyre mentors young reporters and writes for the Mountain State Spotlight, a nonprofit news outlet dedicated to independent, in-depth reporting of West Virginia’s most critical issues. And he’s still chasing opioid stories.
THE
LOYOLA EFFECT "Seeing the excitement and celebration around Loyola Loyal Day grow is impressive." Laurie Eichelberger Leiva ’03, Assistant Vice President of Alumni Engagement
780 donors from nearly 40 states giving $327,190
"The more complex the world seems to become, the more I come back to the foundation of my Loyola education. I'm giving more so that others can have that grounding and enriching experience too." Mark Holloway ’93, 2021 lead donor
LOYOLA LOYAL DAY
Taken together, small actions can have a big impact. When the Loyola community comes together, the impact is both immediate—providing resources for current students—and long-lasting, allowing Loyola to continue its mission of providing a premier Jesuit education in New Orleans' culture of creativity. Each year, Loyola Loyal Day harnesses this power of small actions. Since the first Loyola Loyal Day in 2016, members of the Loyola community across the globe have come together each spring in celebration and support. Each year, Loyola alumni, parents, faculty, staff, and friends have met and exceeded the Loyola Loyal Day goal. In 2016, the goal of 200 gifts was exceeded by a modest amount, with that trend increasing steadily year by year. Loyola Loyal Day advocates have been essential to this success. These alumni and other supporters spread the word about Loyola Loyal Day, create giving challenges, and share their personal Loyola Loyal Day stories. “The most meaningful change to Loyola Loyal Day since 2016 has been the volunteers. That first year, only a handful of alumni volunteers helped plan Loyola Loyal Day, so it was primarily a staff-driven project. Now several dozen alumni share the work, and the results have increased steadily because of their support.” says Assistant Vice President of Alumni Engagement Laurie Eichelberger Leiva ’03. Loyola Loyal Day 2021 was held on March 25, and despite the many setbacks of the previous year, the loyalty of the Loyola community held fast. The goal for Loyola Loyal Day 2021 was 500 gifts in 24 hours, and loyal lead donors provided leadership by creating a special challenge gift to inspire widespread giving. Support poured in from across the country throughout the day and into the evening, with 780 donors from nearly 40 states giving over $327,190. Among graduating classes, the Class of 2024 raised the most funds, generating over $11,000 in gifts. Top Loyola Loyal Day advocates included Stephanie Stokes (parent), Brett Simpson (director of athletics), and Jennifer Britt (Class of ’20). This level of enduring commitment has a huge impact on current and future Loyola students. The Loyola Fund—which is essential to innovation and strategic planning—received the largest boost, ensuring that Loyola’s classrooms and other facilities continue to offer the latest educational resources to all students. Wolf Pack Athletics raised over $22,000, with volleyball generating the most gifts among the department’s 18 athletic teams. The Loyola community’s continued support year after year ensures that Loyola’s Jesuit traditions thrive in the present and endure into the future, even in the midst of today’s challenges. SUMMER 2021 | loyno
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Focus on the Future BY TONYA JORDAN-LOHT
A Conversation with Provost Dr. Tanuja Singh While many were reeling from unprecedented changes in the summer of 2020, the Loyola community quietly began one exciting new chapter by welcoming Dr. Tanuja Singh as the university’s new provost and senior vice president of academic affairs in July. Dr. Singh came to Loyola from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, where she served as dean of the Greehey School of Business for 11 years. An expert in strategic planning and fundraising, she is an author and invited speaker for national and international audiences across a range of topics, including organizational strategy, future of work, higher education landscape, and more. Originally from Uttarakhand, India, Singh completed an M.Sc. in physics at the University of Allahabad before immigrating to the United States in 1988. She then earned an M.B.A. from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, and a doctorate in business administration from Southern Illinois University. She taught at Northern Illinois University for 13 years before joining St. Mary’s University.
A proud U.S. citizen for well over 20 years now, Dr. Singh is the author of over 40 published articles and co-author of a book on electronic media, Surfing the Rift: The Executive’s Guide to the Post Web 2.0 World. She is on the Board of Directors of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International, the premier global business school accreditation body, and is the primary benefactor and Chairperson for a school in rural India that serves disadvantaged children. Dr. Singh was inducted into the San Antonio Women’s Hall of Fame in 2017 and received the San Antonio Business Journal’s Women’s Leadership Award in 2018. Having now been at Loyola for nearly a year, Dr. Singh is working closely with President Tetlow and others to implement Loyola’s strategic vision and has come to love her new city.
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What are some of the goals for Loyola and your role at Loyola? Loyola’s market-responsive programs and the creative energy of New Orleans bring together some of the most diverse and talented students we educate. We want to make sure they have the ability to not merely explore their potential but also their passion. And when they graduate, we want them to find their vocation—not just an occupation. This means that in addition to being their teachers and mentors, we also support them in their personal and professional journeys so we can retain them as students and help them graduate on time. That is why our strategic plan emphasizes increasing enrollment as well as retention. We also want to make sure that Loyola is known nationally and internationally for its programs and its impact. We have extremely talented faculty and staff, and our students come from all over the globe to learn from them. Our graduates live and work all over the world as well, and we want to make sure that people know the power and the potential of Loyola New Orleans. Of course, exceptional education means hiring, supporting, and retaining exceptional faculty and staff. One of the major goals for us is to help grow our resources by increasing our endowment and revenues by 20%. Part of this revenue growth will come from academic programming that is responsive to the needs of the world. Only then we can ensure that we reward and retain our talented and diverse faculty. Only then will we be able to recruit the best minds and hearts to support an aspirational and inspirational vision steeped in the Jesuit tradition.
The fundamental tenets of Jesuit education resonate with me in many ways. Some of what I will say may sound a bit cliché, but it is true nevertheless. I believe we are all here because we are meant to work towards something bigger than ourselves. Cura personalis, the idea of focusing on the whole person, makes us appreciate the many ways in which we might serve. Magis to me means that we are always striving to be better and do better, not just do more. We are trying to be better teachers, citizens, and humans inhabiting this planet. In essence, a Jesuit institution like Loyola enables me to discern how I might serve a higher purpose.
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One of the major goals for us is to help grow our resources by increasing our endowment and revenues by
20%
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What inspired you to pursue a career in Jesuit education?
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What trends in the marketplace and employment opportunities should Loyola be preparing for? How is Loyola responding to these trends? One of the areas I research and speak on is the future of work. As we well know, technology and the fourth industrial revolution are changing the pace of innovation and the way we will live and work. This change is affecting every organization at a remarkable pace. This rapid change requires skills that, in my opinion, are truly beyond the scope of individual academic disciplines. The ability to problem solve, be entrepreneurial and cognitively adaptable, be comfortable with uncertainty, have a service mindset— these are the exact skills we as a liberal arts institution help our students develop, irrespective of their chosen major. The more we can integrate these skills into everything we teach, the more prepared our students will be. At the discipline-specific level, we need to prepare our students for those areas that are in high demand now and will be in the future. All aspects of health care, for example, will be at the forefront in the future. So, we have new
programs in nursing, public health, and healthcare law. We are developing graduate programs in healthcare management with a focus on health analytics and leadership. Similarly, we are planning more cross-disciplinary programming that focuses on environmental issues and sustainable development. It is also important to remember that skill instability, the ever changing nature of skills our graduates will need, requires us to focus on lifelong learning for our current students, alumni, and the larger community. Most organizational leaders I speak with these days, whether they run a company or a museum or a governmental agency, tell me that upskilling and reskilling of their employees is a top priority for them. Loyola offers many programs through our Office of Professional and Continuing Studies. We offer academic and non-academic certificates in cyber security, leadership, digital marketing, and a lot more. I see us expanding this type of
programming to provide these opportunities in many more areas. To meet the need for expanded workforce training in the region, Loyola is planning to relaunch City College, which will provide a range of continuing education and professional certification programs along with degree completion options in a fully online mode. While the pandemic has demanded a lot from us, it has also enabled us to look at virtual learning as a viable option that fills the emerging needs of a populace that is mobile, adaptive, technologically savvy, and needs more options. Loyola, therefore, will expand and improve its online instruction and programming, and I expect to see us grow in that area. Finally, our curriculum needs to be reviewed more often to ensure we are being fully creative, responsive, and innovative. The current pace of change requires universities to be relevant and responsive to those we serve.
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What are you most passionate about?
What keeps you up at night?
Too many things to adequately capture here. But, perhaps in my role as an academic leader at Loyola, the two most important things to me are the power of education to transform lives and the power of diversity to transform an entire organization. I have witnessed that dual transformative power personally as an educator and in my role as an organizational leader. Both make us stronger and better, and we must commit to them unconditionally and unequivocally.
Higher education is undergoing a massive transformation. Demographic changes are making higher education much more competitive, and technology, while an equalizer of sorts, is also putting immense pressure on us to move at a pace that is not the norm for higher education. We need to be responsive, nimble, and innovative to compete with the many alternatives in the marketplace while ensuring that we also remain true to our roots and traditions.
What do you like to do when not working? I am an avid traveler and have visited many countries and continents, developing deep friendships with people from around the world. I am also an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction of all kinds. And, I am a nature enthusiast. There is nothing better than a long hike through the wilderness to bring me joy.
The two most important things to me: 1. T he power of education to transform lives
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2. T he power of diversity to transform an entire organization
How does living in New Orleans suit you so far? I moved to New Orleans last June when everything that is uniquely New Orleans was suddenly off limits—the music, festivities, restaurants, and crowds.
I have come to love the city for its creative, resilient spirit and the fun and occasionally irreverent way it deals with whatever the world throws at it. I love the people, the food, and the culture— but not the potholes!
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A Test of Faith BY JUSTIN NYSTROM, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AND DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF NEW ORLEANS
African-American students at Loyola in the era of segregation Most Loyola alumni possess a general awareness of the university’s role during the civil rights movement. The story of Norman C. Francis becoming the first African-American graduate of Loyola's College of Law in 1955 and the national attention garnered by Fr. Joseph Fichter’s work against racial injustice often serve as highlights to what otherwise remained in many ways a far more conservative campus than we know today.
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For a number of years, Loyola's first undergraduates of color were believed to be four male students who graduated in 1966.
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Noteworthy for the institution, but otherwise ordinary in the experience of southern universities whose acceptance rates of minorities remained low. Yet this last tidbit fell into question late in 2019 when Percy Pierre reached out to Loyola because he believed that, in fact, his sister, Sr. Clare of Assisi Pierre, and a fellow nun, Sr. Agnes Marie Sampia, became Loyola’s first African-American undergraduates when they both earned their bachelor of arts degrees in education in 1963. That date immediately caught everyone’s attention. It was believed that like most
regional universities, Loyola began admitting students of color in 1962, as more contentious challenges to segregated campuses unfolded elsewhere in the South. If Pierre was right, this pushed an admission timeline to the late 1950s, when far fewer institutions risked drawing the ire of their segregated communities. It was clear that we needed to revisit this timeline, and that meant a trip to visit with the sisters and listen to their unique Loyola story.
Sisters of the Holy Family v
Turning off of Chef Menteur Highway onto the long driveway leading to the motherhouse of the Sisters of the Holy Family, one is immediately taken by the quiet beauty of the place—its shady oaks and expansive lawn greeting visitors to that particular form of tranquility one often finds at Catholic retreats. In this way, seated in a room just off the lobby of the sisters’ midcentury motherhouse with audio gear running, began the process of recovering this important chapter in our university and city’s history. It is unusual to grow up Catholic and not come away imbued with a mixture of admiration and awe for nuns, so often the faith’s frontline in its mission of social justice. Both in their 80s, Sisters Clare of Assisi Pierre and Agnes Marie Sampia embody this ideal, and they generously shared stories from their remarkable lives.
Sr. Agnes Marie Sampia
Sr. Clare of Assisi Pierre
A native of Carencro, Louisiana, Sr. Agnes Marie Sampia grew up in Lafayette, where she lived with her grandmother, a woman who said the rosary every day and who played a crucial role in her decision to devote her life to God. Despite nightly prayers during which she vowed to “say yes” to the call, it wasn’t until the Sisters of the Holy Family visited Lafayette’s Holy Rosary Institute in her senior year when she learned that the sisters believed she had a calling. “Well, I was angry, really. So I went to the chapel and I start fussing at God. I say, ‘All these years I’ve been praying, you never asked me. You told the sisters before me?’” Sr. Agnes Marie shares with a laugh. “Well, to my knowledge, that wasn’t fair. But then I caught myself. I say, ‘Who am I talking to God like this?’”
Sr. Clare of Assisi Pierre grew up in Uptown New Orleans surrounded by immediate and extended family with enormous reverence for those in the religious life. “They were the fourth person of the Blessed Trinity,” explains Sr. Clare. As a little girl, she attended regular benedictions at the Blessed Sacrament Church in the city’s Black Pearl neighborhood with her great aunt, and on one of these trips she saw what she believes to be a miraculous appearance of the host in the monstrance. But unlike Sr. Agnes Marie, Sr. Clare’s was not a childhood of waiting for the call. She spent her adolescence as a popular student at St. Mary’s Academy high school in the French Quarter and “having boyfriends,” so Sr. Clare’s family did not anticipate her decision to enter the convent. “I think they were shocked,” she laughs. “They weren’t just surprised.” SUMMER 2021 | loyno
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at Xavier University in the summer term of 1946. She worked toward an education degree a class or two at a time until enrolling in the summer session of 1957 at Loyola, eventually graduating in August 1959 with a bachelor of science in education degree and thus becoming what we believe to be the first person of color to receive an undergraduate degree from Loyola.
Srs. Clare and Agnes Marie met for the first time in 1956, two of the 13 young women who came to the Sisters of the Holy Family at the end of that summer. The order had famously operated on Orleans Avenue in the heart of the French Quarter since the middle of the 19th century, but had only the year before moved to a modern “million-dollar” facility located on Chef Menteur Highway in Eastern New Orleans, a part of the city that had only begun to develop at that time. “As we drove up,” Sr. Agnes Marie remembers thinking, “Boy, if we live in a building like that, I know I’m going to persevere.” The gleaming new motherhouse may have embodied the modernizing vision of Mayor Chep Morrison’s New Orleans, but retrograde legacies of the past remained in force. An advertisement for “Beautiful Rosemont Place,” for instance, located just down the road from the convent, boasted of being “New Orleans’ most exclusive colored subdivision.”
It was customary for the young women pursuing religious life at the Sisters of the Holy Family to attend a university to further their studies, often in the field of education. This normally meant either traveling to out-of-state universities or attending locally at Xavier University in the summer while working missions during the rest of the year. This predictable pattern abruptly changed for
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Srs. Clare and Agnes Marie, though, when they learned that they would be enrolled at Loyola University full-time in the fall of 1959. “When Mother called us in to tell us we weren’t going to Xavier anymore, I said, ‘Oh, well. Here come obedience.’ That’s what it was,” remembers Sr. Agnes Marie. “We had to go.” Whether they were enthusiastic or not, such was their lot. “We were trained in that way of thinking,” notes Sr. Clare. “Not that the Superior was holier than anyone else, but it was called grace of office. Because you held a certain position, then you could appeal to God in terms of that position or pray for inspiration. You pray for inspiration, I’m sure, in decision-making, and so it’s essentially the same thing.” The internal mechanics of the decision to send them to Loyola at this particular moment in time remains unclear, but it was most likely influenced in part by Fr. Joseph J. Fichter, S.J., who taught sociology at Loyola and who, by the late 1950s, had achieved a national reputation as a racial progressive. Part of the decision also rested with Sr. Marie Anselm Duffel, who was the Superior at the motherhouse, and whose discernment led to the selection of Srs. Clare and Agnes Marie—two professed junior sisters with strong characters and excellent academic records. As it turns out, this was not, in fact, the first time that a sister from the Holy Family had attended Loyola. According to Sr. Clare, there was another nun at Loyola when she and Sr. Agnes Marie enrolled there. Sr. Letitia Senegal (1920-2018), who had graduated from high school in 1945, began, like most members of the order, attending part-time
When they learned that these two young colleagues of theirs had been selected, the sisters confessed that not all members of their cohort were happy. “We were junior professed at the time, and ordinarily, the junior professed were not sent away to university,” explains Sr. Clare. But it was also the fact that they were to be full-time college students that was perhaps most out of the ordinary. This detail indicated that individuals may have made conscious decisions to bring about change. Simply getting to Loyola at that time was a battle in its own right for the sisters. Even today, when one might take Interstate 10 at a reasonably high speed to cover the ground between Loyola’s Uptown campus and the motherhouse in Eastern New Orleans, it still represents a journey completely across town. When asked about the car ride to Loyola, Sr. Agnes Marie laughs, “Car? Bus. We didn’t have a car. The bus, the bus!” “It took quite long then, too, because we had other schools along the way, and it seemed as though we all went to school at the same time and were dismissed at the same time, so we always had these crowded, crowded buses and streetcars, because we rode the bus and streetcar from this bus stop out here to Loyola University four years in a row, including some summers,” notes Sr. Clare.
Going to School by Bus In 1959, those busses were segregated. There was a long narrow piece of wood that fitted into a rail on the bus seat—creating a screen that read “For Colored Only.” Black riders had to sit behind that screen. “So sometimes we wouldn’t bother, because it was a big group of us coming from St. Mary’s downtown and the French Quarter. We would get on the bus, and if there were no seats behind the screen where we could sit, we would sit in front of the screen,” explains Sr. Clare. “So scripture tells us we should honor our father and our mother, so when we sat in front, for me, I honored my mother, and when I sat in the back, I honored my father. I was very
obedient to the scripture. ‘Honor your father and your mother.’” As Sr. Clare’s brother Percy points out, their mother was fair and could pass for white, while their father could not. “I didn’t know you were breaking the law,” muses Percy when discussing this particular story. “I wasn’t breaking the law,” says Sr. Clare in response. “I wasn’t breaking the law—I was keeping the commandment!” “Petrified.” That was how Sr. Clare described her feelings about the first day at Loyola. For Sr. Agnes Marie, it was “enemy territory.” Though with the passage of time, perhaps, both thought, it was not the place of enemies but simply those with a different mindset. Sr. Agnes Marie remembered the words of her grandmother on that first day: “Don’t worry. God will always protect you. And I felt protected by her and [the] remembrance of her.” Duty also propelled them forward. Their duty was to attend Loyola and do their best to learn and to achieve good grades. “I don’t think I ever thought too, too much about the color difference, the kinds of things that might happen because we were not of the same color as the rest of the world around there, except some of the people in the kitchen,” notes Sr. Clare. “Of course, we didn’t eat in the cafeteria.” Instead, every day the young sisters would eat their packed lunch in the shade of Marquette Hall’s colonnade.
Student Life at Loyola “I don’t recall anyone being overtly unwelcoming,” Sr. Clare explains when discussing student life at Loyola, “But I don’t recall any being casually welcoming either.” Some of this social distance may have been because the sisters wore a habit. “I think nuns were less among the general population than now,” continues Sr. Clare. “Like when I went back to graduate school [at Loyola], it was a totally different kind of situation.” Two figures that the sisters singled out as making their stay more welcoming were sociology professor Fr. Fichter and Fr. Louis Poché, S.J., who taught theology. That only these two men stood apart was a reflection of the fact that the overall culture of the university, both students and faculty alike, had yet to embrace change.
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Their presence did not go unnoticed by white students and faculty. “There was a math professor, a man, and I was in that class,” remembers Sr. Agnes Marie. “In high school, I had not had graphing. They didn’t teach us that where I [went to school], and he was explaining something on the board about the graphing of the line and the slant of the line, and he was just going on at a rate, and I didn’t know what he was talking about.” Working up the nerve to interrupt, but knowing that God would protect her, she asked, “How can you tell even from the equation if the line is going to go upward or slant?” The professor stopped. “And he laughed and the whole class laughed, and as if to say, ‘You don’t know that? You didn’t have that in high school?’ I said, ‘No, they didn’t teach us that in high school, but if you explain it to me, I’m sure I could learn it.’ And he laughed and the whole student body laughed. He says, ‘This is the way you do it.’ You know, kind of like making fun.” The professor continued working, but then stopped, realizing that he had in fact made a mistake. “You’re right,” he says to Sr. Agnes Marie. “And then he told [the rest of the class], ‘How did she get that and didn’t have it in high school? And none of y’all got it?’ And he says, ‘Here’s where I made the mistake. Thank you for showing me.’ And it changed their whole attitude. They stopped laughing,” explains Sr. Agnes Marie. The isolation at Loyola was part of a broader system of segregation in New Orleans society that seemed to touch every aspect of their lives and governed their movement on campus as surely as it did anywhere else.
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“We did our student teaching at St. Mary’s in the French Quarter, and the whole reason is, I didn’t know then, because we couldn’t go to any other school. The schools that they got for Loyola’s students to go to, because they were the white schools,” remembers Sr. Clare. The underlying separation was fundamentally social. Learning that their favorite singer was going to be playing near campus, Sr. Agnes Marie was excited and hoped they could go. “Oh, my god. We love Johnny Mathis. Johnny Mathis was going to sing.” When she first learned this news in class, Sr. Agnes Marie exclaimed, “Johnny Mathis is coming here!” The whole class turned and looked at her. It was then the creeping realization hit the room. The show was for whites only.
Graduation Graduation day for the sisters finally came on May 28, 1963. After that, mission work soon replaced the daily bus journeys from New Orleans East to Loyola’s campus and brought new and greater challenges than
they had known before. Sr. Agnes Marie left for Opelousas and later Lafayette to teach in high schools through the era of desegregation. Eventually she would serve the order as far away as Nigeria, where she helped young women form an independent religious community. Sr. Clare, meanwhile, headed to a mission in Compton, California, right in time to bear witness to the Watts Riots. Like Sr. Agnes Marie, Sr. Clare would return to Louisiana and the front lines of Catholic school desegregation in the early 1970s. “My experience at Loyola University,” reflects Sr. Clare, “I’m very sure, contributed vastly to the person that I’ve become. There are things that you can’t see or know, except you see them and know them best in perspective, and when I look back at my life in preparation for this little conference, I can see how blessed I’ve been, and I’m sure other people reflect and see their blessings. You see them in perspective. And then I see also the opportunities that I had, and they were not ordinary opportunities at the time.” It is within this perspective of a life of faith that service takes shape. In a roundabout way, the everyday obstacles of receiving their education at Loyola certainly prepared these women for the much greater challenges they later faced. But it was the university itself that received the greatest benefit in being host to women of such grace, for their example supplied the community with an opportunity to better understand the change of heart required for us to truly live up to our Ignatian ideals.
A letter from Zontré City '21, SGA Vice President Dear Loyola alumni, I’m 40 days away from graduation while writing this—40 days from hanging up my class beads and joining you as an alumnus of our great institution. Over the past four years, I have worked around the clock to leave Loyola better than I found it, particularly for Black students. In doing this, I’ve learned so much about the Black alumni who did it long before me. I am forever thankful for their positive contributions to Loyola. Zontré City is a digital filmmaking student in the College of Music and Media. In addition to serving as the current SGA vice president, he is a campus tour guide, lead Homecoming coordinator, and a 2020 Magis Student Leadership Award recipient.
Though the university is still evolving, I want to paint a picture of what my past four years have looked like as a Black student.
L oyola’s Black students are leading our campus into the future—particularly Black women. It is rare to look at an active organization on our campus and not see Black student leadership. I myself have witnessed the election of four Black student government presidents and vice presidents. The time and sacrifices of past Black student life pioneers have not gone in vain. As Loyola’s Black student population grows, so do our spaces and organizations. When I arrived on campus just four years ago, Black-centered organizations were sparse. Over these years, I have witnessed the formation of the United Brothers Association, the
Minority Association of Pre-Medical Students, and an NAACP chapter on our beloved campus. Outside of student involvement, Black students have their eyes on the prize of what comes after graduation. My friends and I chartered the Lemon Pepper networking organization for marginalized communities in 2019 with this very goal in mind. Black students are securing internships with top companies and looking into national programs. In spite of this progress, Black students need alumni support more than ever. We need relationships within the larger Loyola alumni community in order to better ourselves, strengthen the organizations we run, and prepare for life after Loyola. As traditions such as Homecoming continue to develop, please be active. Help break down the silos that exist between undergraduates and alumni by extending an olive branch. Utilize this time of virtuality to speak to students directly. Offer them resources and opportunities that Black students too often don’t have. Be the alumnus or alumna you yourself needed when you were a student at Loyola. Let’s continue to pay it forward, as those who have come before us have.
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Congratulations to our newest alumni! More than 700 students graduated from Loyola University New Orleans on May 15-16. They were honored in four separate diploma ceremonies over the course of the two days at UNO Lakefront Arena. The 2021 graduates were also celebrated at Masses and award ceremonies at Holy Name of Jesus Church on Friday, May 14, followed by outdoor receptions where faculty and staff visited with the graduates and their guests. All events were livestreamed, and a special virtual commencement ceremony was produced for graduates who were unable to attend in person.
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Watch the ceremony online at commencement.loyno.edu SUMMER 2021 | loyno
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Raising the BAR In a year of endless stops and starts, Loyola’s College of Law advocacy competition teams have excelled in regional and national competitions throughout the pandemic. Highlights include showings in the semifinals of the National Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition and the American Association of Justice Regional Trial Advocacy Competition. The College of Law’s long tradition of skills-based training provides students with many opportunities to put what they’ve learned in the classroom into action. Competition teams engage in negotiation, put on entire trials complete with admission of evidence and witness examination, and perform appellate work. "The Advocacy Center allows us to pull all of these skills together for a continuum of experiences for our students," says Dean Madeleine Landrieu. "It is very exciting." “We all learn by doing, and we learn from others as well. By practicing these skills in a competition environment, students learn techniques and strategies both from one another and from other teams,” says Distinguished Professor of Law and Inaugural Advocacy Center Executive Director Monica Hof Wallace. “Throughout this pandemic, our students have been resolute to compete remotely,” adds Wallace. “They have not let up on the gas pedal in their desire to prepare and compete. And now they have experience conducting trials, negotiations, and appellate arguments remotely. Going forward, this will be a very valuable skill.”
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October 8 – 10, 2020
LEROY R. HASSELL SR. NATIONAL CONSTITUTIONAL LAW MOOT COURT COMPETITION The Advocacy Center's first team of the academic year, the First Amendment Moot Court Team, finished in the quarterfinals of their tournament in a field of 33 teams. Composed of team members Mary Claire Kramer, Sarah Beth Hyde, and Brooke Hathaway, and coached by Katelyn McGibney, Loyola’s First Amendment Moot Court Team finished with a 3 – 1 record, defeating Touro Law School and Wake Forest in its two preliminary rounds. “During the round against Michigan State, Hathaway delivered one of the most compelling rebuttals we've ever seen in competition,” says Advocacy Center Team Coordinator Evan J. Bergeron. “This, of course, is a year like no other, and this competition fit that mold. Instead of primping and prepping in a law school hallway in Washington, D.C., before each round, we were setting laptops on boxes, adjusting ring lights, and checking microphones and sound output. This was also the Advocacy Center's first time participating in this competition, as the tournament that normally fills this slot was canceled due to COVID-19.”
November 6 – 8, 2020
February 4 – 7, 2021
NATIONAL CRIMINAL PROCEDURE COMPETITION
JOHN L. COSTELLO NATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW TRIAL ADVOCACY COMPETITION
In this competition, Hunter Ahia and Victoria Pitre of the Constitutional Criminal Procedure Moot Court exemplified excellent oral advocacy skills in a case involving Miranda warnings. They were coached by third-year law student Jodi Hill, with Professor Leslie Shoebotham advising.
Loyola’s Trial Advocacy team, featuring Camrie Ventry, Amanda Olmstead, and Forrest Ladd, made it to the semifinals in the Costello Trial Advocacy Competition under the direction of coach Nick Bergeron, J.D. ’17.
“The pandemic challenged the team to be adaptable, accountable, and persistent,” says Hill. “Due to the pandemic, we practiced and competed exclusively on Zoom. Nevertheless, the team members worked extremely hard to master complex and cutting-edge criminal procedure legal issues. Undoubtedly, this unique experience prepared them to be effective legal advocates, no matter the challenge.”
“They advanced to the semifinals, after taking on NYU, Case Western, and University of Houston, to face Georgetown in the semi-final round. Neither Loyola nor Georgetown advanced to the finals, but we came away with the award for Runner Up Best Defense,” says Dean and Judge Adrian G. Duplantier Distinguished Professor of Law Madeleine Landrieu. February 25 – 27, 2021
ABA NATIONAL APPELLATE ADVOCACY COMPETITION REGIONALS Loyola’s ABA Moot Court Team argued through three rounds of competition against Cumberland School of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law, and Belmont College of Law, making it to the Sweet 16. They had the fourth highest brief score in the competition. This team consists of Katherine Ranero, Margo Richard, and Michelle Rivere, with Megan Uptegrove as coach.
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Class Notes 1970s James LaHam ’73 (accounting) has released a new book, Business Wisdom. Ro Brown ’78 (communication) has been inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
1980s William Gaudet, J.D. ’82 was elected president of the New Orleans Bar Association. Judy Cannella Schott, J.D. ’85 appeared on the ABC show Shark Tank and was featured in The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate for her specialty bedding product, the Better Bedder. The Hon. Susan Theall, J.D. ’85 has been elected judge on the Louisiana 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal. Darrin Rankin ’87 has been named regional vice president and chancellor of Western Governors University Texas. Deidre Hayes ’88 (psychology) has been named chair of the board of directors of Covenant House New Orleans. Juana Marine-Lombard ’89 (marketing and management), M.B.A. ’91, J.D. ’98 has been elected New Orleans magistrate.
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Oliver Yandle ’89 (communication) has been named president and CEO of the Arizona Society of CPAs.
Shalanda Young ’99 (psychology) has been appointed Deputy Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget in the Biden-Harris administration.
Coleen O'Lear ’07 (communication) has been named head of mobile strategy for The Washington Post. Jacqueline Ward, M.S.N. ’08 is chief nursing officer of Texas Children's Hospital.
2000s 2010s 1990s Hank Stuever ’90 (communication) is senior editor of the Style section of The Washington Post.
Jamelle Williams Adisa ’02 (music education) was trumpeter, arranger, and contractor for John Legend's album Bigger Love, which won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album.
Geri Broussard Baloney, J.D. ’95 has been appointed to the governing board of the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
Amanda Howard Lowe ’03 (political science), J.D. ’09 was named one of City Business magazine's Ones to Watch in the law category.
David Dyer, M.B.A. ’95 received the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ annual Award for Pride in Public Service.
Sara Moppin ’03 (history) is a partner in the law firm of Preti Flaherty in Portland, Maine.
Michelle Byrne Kilroy ’95 (psychology) is chief human resources officer for Elemica Digital Supply Network in Pennsylvania. Jared Llorens ’96 (English) has been named dean of Louisiana State University's E.J. Ourso College of Business. Alfred Walker ’96 (music) and the cast of Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera won a Grammy Award for “Best Opera Recording.” Luke Beslin, J.D. ’97 has been sworn into office as City Judge in Rayne, Louisiana. Paul Jenny, M.B.A. ’99 has been named CFO of Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
Tamar Meguerditchian Gregorian ’04 (communication) is a professor of practice in public relations in Tulane University’s School of Professional Advancement. Jessie Terrebone Thompson ’04 (theatre arts) won the 2020 Big Easy Award for “Best Supporting Actress in a Musical” for her performance in Matilda with Tulane’s Summer Lyric Theatre program. Laurel Hess ’06 (communication) has been accepted into the 2021 Techstars Austin Accelerator program for her app-based wash-and-fold laundry service Hampr.
Ryan Nevin, J.D. ’11 was named one of the American Bankers Association's 40 Under 40 in Wealth Management. Grant O'Brien ’11 (political science) has been appointed to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of the Administrator in the BidenHarris administration. Whitney Evan Snardon ’11 (physics pre health / languages and cultures) is a market associate administrator and co-ethics and compliance officer for Parkridge Health System in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Dean Baquet, H ’13, executive editor of The New York Times, received the 37th annual Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. Camille Bryant, J.D. ’13 is a partner in the law firm of McGlinchey Stafford in New Orleans. Ashley Irvin ’13 (communication) has been named director of marketing and communications at Xavier University in New Orleans. Shoshana Shattenkirk ’13 (languages and cultures) wrote and produced an original pandemic-themed musical, Fever Dreams, for the New York Public Library.
Martin Holly ’14 (graphic design) and his virtual reality gaming company Striker were recently featured in The TimesPicayune | The New Orleans Advocate.
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Anne Barkley ’15 (chemistry) received the Desert Research Institute’s 22nd Annual Wagner Award for Women in Atmospheric Sciences.
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Emma Reid ’15 (environmental science) was named the Louisiana Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Communicator of the Year for her documentary, In the Blind. Kali Russell ’15 (theatre) won the 2020 Big Easy Award for “Best Actress in a Musical” for Cabaret and “Best Choreography in a Musical” with See Em’ On Stage: A Production Company. Michael Pashkevich ’17 (biology) recently received a Marshall Sherfield Fellowship and co-authored a study, “Assessing the effects of oil palm replanting on arthropod biodiversity,” which was published in the Journal of Applied Ecology. Aaron Wiseman ’17 (political science) was hired as an assistant district attorney for Orleans Parish.
2020
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Brittany Carnes, J.D. ’20 has joined the law firm of Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann in New Orleans. Elizabeth Whitfield ’20 (history) recently completed an internship at the Library of Congress.
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YOUNG ALUMNA OF THE YEAR
Living with Purpose Madeline Janney ’16 A native New Orleanian, Janney was drawn to Loyola by its Jesuit education model and small campus community. A member of the University Honors Program, Janney majored in psychology with a minor in New Orleans studies. She served as president of Loyola’s chapter of the Psi Chi psychology honor society and was the department’s student representative as well. “By far the most impactful experiences I had at Loyola were those I had through service learning opportunities,” says Janney. She volunteered internationally, teaching summer camps for elementary-age kids alongside high school and college students local to the area. She also volunteered locally with a New Orleans nonprofit to help improve the reading skills and self-esteem of elementary school students. “These experiences taught me the necessity of cross-cultural experiences and cultural competency, both in and out of the classroom,” says Janney. “My Loyola experience highlighted the importance of investing my time and energy in my local community, which
MADELINE JANNEY ’16 WAS NAMED THE 2020 YOUNG ALUMNA OF THE YEAR for her service to the university through the Young Alumni Board and to the community as a volunteer and caring healthcare practitioner and advocate.
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has in turn infomed my current career path—and I feel so fulfilled by my work.” Janney continues to be an active volunteer and alumna, participating in service opportunities both internationally and locally. “Wolves on the Prowl is, to this day, one of my favorite service days of the year! I’ve participated every year since my time as an undergraduate and I enjoy it just as much now as I did then.” After graduating from Loyola in 2016, Janney earned a master’s degree in communication sciences and disorders from Southeastern Louisiana University. She is now a speech-language pathologist, working primarily in the public school system with children with speech and language disorders and other disabilities. She also works with adults who are recovering from stroke or traumatic brain injury in an inpatient hospital setting and begins her doctoral work in speech-language pathology through Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, this summer. “In hindsight, I can see that all the little things during my time at Loyola added up to my current career path. My psychology background laid the groundwork for my interest in neuroscience and brain development, both of which are deeply relevant to my job now. My honors linguistics course piqued my interest in language structure and function. The writing and reading I did for every one of my courses helped me become a more effective communicator. My service learning opportunities clarified my passion for working in
a teaching role. Loyola's emphasis on social justice gave me a lens through which to see health and educational disparities within our local community and motivates me to address this in my daily clinical practice. My Loyola education permeates every aspect of my clinical practice, which in turn allows me to better serve my patients and clients across the lifespan, from birth to one hundred!” Janney was nominated for this award by former Loyola classmate and fellow Young Alumni Board member, psychology alumna Nydia Araya ’17. “Madeline has modeled for me what it looks like to be a professional young woman, a selfless and compassionate person, and a mentor to others," says Araya. “To me, she embodies the true spirit of Loyola in that she sings Loyola’s praises wherever she goes! She is always wearing maroon and gold (even on the frontlines during COVID), she is constantly connected to Loyola, and is always eager to volunteer and give back to the community." As an alumni volunteer, Janney has served on the Young Alumni Board for three years and is currently serving as president. In this capacity, she has taken the lead role in organizing volunteer, admissions, and social events that allow recent Loyola graduates to stay connected to their alma mater in meaningful ways. Of her time on the Board, Janney says, “I am continuously in awe of and thankful for the opportunity to be surrounded by the smart, dedicated, and generous board members who give their time, talent, and treasure to the young alumni community.”
v
HOW LOYOLA SHAPED ME
Being for Others Douglas Hammel, J.D. ’00 Douglas Hammel, J.D. ’00 is the incoming president of the College of Law Alumni Board and a litigator in the New Orleans area with many years of experience in both public and private practice. Committed to Loyola’s focus on educating the whole person, he has served on the Law Alumni Board for over eight years and hopes to advance the practice of cura personalis within the wider legal community. Hammel studied political and social policy at American University in Washington, D.C., as an undergraduate and moved to New Orleans to be with his now-wife of 22 years. “I knew I wanted to attend law school, and Loyola’s night school option was a big draw for me. I did the day program my first year, and then I was hired as a clerk for Judge Frank Marullo. I held that job for several years and did the rest of my coursework in the evening program.” “Without a doubt, working in the Law Clinic was the most formative experience of my education at Loyola. Under Professor Darryl Derbigny’s guidance, I successfully defended a client who was wrongfully accused of second-degree murder. It was an immense responsibility for a lowly law student and was very stressful. But that case lit the fire for me. From that point on, I have been a litigator.” “After Loyola, I worked as assistant district attorney in Jefferson Parish for three years, and then as a city attorney in New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina. My family and I spent some time in Miami after the storm, and I practiced immigration law there. Then Bruce Betzer, one of my classmates and good friends from the College of Law, got me interested in helping people navigate the post-Katrina landscape. Bruce is originally from St. Bernard Parish, and he was providing legal counsel to homeowners and others who were trying to rebuild after the storm. He convinced me to return to New Orleans and get involved in personal injury work as well.” “As difficult and terrible as it was, Hurricane Katrina pushed me to call on the Jesuit training
of finding the beauty in what is, because we simply do not know God's plan. Making this shift—finding gratitude for the chance to help others—completely changed the course of my career. The opportunity to help people directly with their most pressing needs keeps me engaged in personal injury private practice. For me, this work is based on relationships. It goes far beyond the transactional.” “When I was a law student, Fr. Moore was in charge of meeting with students whose grades were falling. His focus was on helping them make specific changes so they could improve and thrive. This approach made an impression on me because it was the complete opposite of the common mentality of, ‘pay your fees and get your Cs.’ It was clear to me that Fr. Moore was invested in students’ growth and success, as opposed to merely keeping them enrolled. This has stayed with me and informed how I interact with my clients.” “My continued commitment to Loyola extends from my own personal belief in the value of holistic living. Spirituality, prayer, meditation, and serenity are essential to my own well-being, and Loyola provides a framework for holistic development in an educational context. Here, there is a recognition of our oneness and of something greater than ourselves. I want to support and expand that culture, and I am honored, humbled, and grateful to be serving as president of the Law Alumni Board. If we promote Loyola’s focus on spiritual growth and holistic development in the wider legal community, the College of Law will surely continue to grow and flourish.”
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Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards has appointed Environmental Law Chair ROB VERCHICK and Environmental Law Professor KAREN SOKOL to serve on the state’s first-ever Climate Initiatives Task Force, which is charged with finding a way to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES The College of Arts and Sciences launched a new undergraduate degree program in public health this spring designed to prepare students for high-paying jobs in this critical area. Starting in Fall 2021, Loyola students will be able to pursue a bachelor of science or bachelor of arts in public health. The program also offers a minor in public health. The Loyola University New Orleans Student Peace Initiative recently presented the university’s 13th annual Student Peace Conference, an online event titled “Our Voice, Our Ideas, Our Future: Progressing Through a Pandemic.” The weeklong annual conference provides an opportunity for students and guests to further community discussion about hope, renewal, and global peace. Organized and led by students under the direction of Patrick G. O'Keefe Distinguished Professor of History BEHROOZ MOAZAMI, this year’s conference addressed key domestic and international issues such as systemic racism, domestic violence, social inequality, gangs and incarceration, the #MeToo movement, immigration and reform, women’s rights, police reform, and environmental pollution. In April, The Catholic Studies Department hosted a conference titled “The Virus and the Resurrection” on how to respond to the pandemic year in light of the Catholic Faith. Presenters in the fields of theology, philosophy, and sociology through their disciplines considered how to view the past year in light of the Resurrection. DRS. CAROL ANN MACGREGOR and EVERETT FULMER considered religiosity and reasoning through a pandemic, while keynote speaker DR. CHRISTOPHER BAGLOW of the University of Notre Dame delivered a talk “From Blombos to Bethlehem: Human Sin and Modern Science.”
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COLLEGE OF BUSINESS In the 2022 ranking for Best Graduate Entrepreneurship Programs by U.S. News and World Report, Loyola University New Orleans ranks 14th among other top universities, moving up six spots from last year to tie with St. Louis University, University of Chicago, and University of Santa Clara Marshall Business School. This marks the second year running that Loyola’s Entrepreneurship Program makes the nation’s Top 20. This spring, Professor of Finance MEHMET DICLE provided financial literacy and personal finance instruction to residents of Covenant House, a nonprofit organization in New Orleans that shelters homeless youth and helps them to rebuild their lives. Through Cov Lifestyles, a program focused on life skills for those moving towards independent living and self-sufficiency, Loyola faculty worked with youth and young adults in transition to cover topics such as understanding personal finance; financial statements, tools and budgets; managing checking and savings accounts; building and maintaining good credit; and credit cards and consumer loans. Through the program, one participant received a full scholarship to Loyola.
COLLEGE OF LAW To honor Black History Month, the College of Law recognized Black Loyola alumni who have been pillars of the Loyola and New Orleans communities, including Dr. Norman C. Francis, J.D. ’55; Wayne Connor, J.D. ’15; the Honorable Judge Regina Bartholomew Woods, J.D. ’99; Dean Louis Westerfield, J.D. ’74; the Honorable Judge Carl E. Stewart, J.D. ’74; the Honorable Judge Dana M. Douglas, J.D. ’00; Nia Weeks, J.D. ’09; and the Honorable Judge Kern Reese, J.D. ’77.
Clinical Professor and Associate Director of the Loyola Law Clinic RAMONA FERNANDEZ ’88, J.D. ’96 received the Louisiana State Bar Association’s 2021 Children's Law Award, which recognizes a Louisiana attorney or Louisiana-based organization who has provided outstanding services in the field of children’s law. Professor Fernandez has spent a large part of her career representing individuals in the areas of family law, succession, immigration, criminal, and juvenile law. In her 25 years of work as a children’s lawyer, Fernandez has helped thousands of children as they make their way through the court system. The College of Law’s specialty programs shine in new rankings by U.S. News and World Report. In the 2022 U.S. News Best Graduate Schools rankings, the law school’s clinical training program ranked No. 32 in the nation. Loyola’s part-time law program is ranked No. 38, its environmental law program ranks No. 48, the Legal Research and Writing program ranks No. 61, the law school’s dispute resolution program ranks No. 63, and its trial advocacy program ranks No. 79. In a time when our country feels more divided than ever, people are hungry to be part of the solution to reclaiming civil discourse, and the Nancy M. Marsiglia Institute of Justice at Loyola offers a unique opportunity to engage in this type of dialogue while learning Constitutional principles. The 12-week community course, presented by the College of Law and United Way of Southeast Louisiana, is designed to bring together a diverse group of citizens willing to engage in bi-partisan, civil, and thoughtful dialogue about our nation and governing documents. The Institute welcomed a diverse group of 32 fellows as part of its spring 2021 cohort, its largest cohort to date. Participants in the 2021 virtual session enjoyed traditional study, class discussions, and expert guest lecturers, such as distinguished judges, authors, attorneys, and political officials. Learn more at UnitedWaySELA.org/ Marsiglia-Institute.
COLLEGE OF MUSIC AND MEDIA SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION AND DESIGN Journalism senior JADE MYERS placed 13th in the national Hearst Journalism Awards Program for television news. This competition features work from the best journalism and mass communication programs across the country, and Myers' award is a testament to all of the hard work done by the Communication and Design faculty and students. Myers has made a major impact at Loyola, serving as a Maroon Minute anchor and reporter, and an officer of Loyola's National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) chapter. This spring, she is working as an assistant news specialist at WVUE Fox 8. This is the second year Loyola has had a student place in the top 20 in the Hearst competition. In Fall 2020, in collaboration with the College of Business, the School of Communication and Design launched an online master of science in marketing and communication degree, a versatile program ideal for working professionals in marketing, public relations, and advertising—or recent undergraduates in marketing, journalism, communications, and general business. Online students will grow their professional networks as they study and examine the technical marketing strategies and communication skills vital to our modern workforce. Learn more at loyno.edu/online. SCHOOL OF MUSIC INDUSTRY STUDIES Two-time Grammy-nominated vocalist and drummer JAMISON ROSS spent the spring semester sharing his renowned musical versatility with Loyola music students. A singer and drummer whose self-styled rhythm and melody garnered his first Grammy nomination in 2015, Ross coached upperclassmen in the School of Music Industry Studies to begin developing their own brands and honing their individual artistry. Trained to recognize and develop natural talent, Ross leads artist development, building a talent pipeline and overseeing creative strategy in his other new role as Head of Artists and Repertoire at Affective Music. This semester at Loyola marked his first foray into university teaching.
SCHOOL OF MUSIC AND THEATRE ARTS
LOYOLA INSTITUTE FOR MINISTRY
First-year opera student JULIA ERNST placed second in the Young Adult Classical Division of the Music International Grand Prix Voice Competition, held at the Hylton Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. with a winning final performance of “Que Fais-tu, Blanche Tourterelle,” from Romeo and Juliet, composed by Charles Gounoud. Ernst was one of six finalists to compete, after having placed first in the Midwest region competition in late January. A mezzo-soprano who has worked closely with the New Orleans Opera Association, Ernst trains at Loyola alongside internationally renowned soprano and voice instructor Irini Kyriakidou. To win the Midwest Semifinals, she sang “Smanie implacabili,” an Italian aria composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from the opera Cosi Fan Tutte, and “Va! laisse couler mes larmes,” a French aria composed by Jules Massenet from the opera Werther.
Loyola Institute for Ministry (LIM) graduate student ASHLEY ELISAR has been named lead researcher for a project funded by a grant from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD). The Roundtable Association of Catholic Diocesan Social Action Directors received the CCHD grant and selected LIM as its education partner for implementation. The project involves studying how the Catholic Church in the United States can be more effective in promoting and acting on the powerful and inspiring tradition of Catholic Social Teaching. Through interviews and data collection, Ashley will develop a picture of social ministry in the United States today and identify opportunities for increasing awareness and action. Her research will result in publications and presentations that the Catholic Roundtable can use to broaden its membership and inform its work in supporting the social mission of the Church.
COLLEGE OF NURSING AND HEALTH SCHOOL OF NURSING The College of Nursing and Health has received a $150,000 grant from the William Randolph Hearst Foundation to support the construction of a new simulation lab at Loyola. This new Sim lab will provide undergraduate nursing students access to hands-on clinical opportunities and help increase the number of skilled nursing professionals prepared to serve a complex range of patients in demanding environments. Simulation can replicate clinical practices in a safe environment and provide nursing students with opportunities to practice their clinical and decision-making skills through varied real-life situational experiences without compromising actual patients' well-being. For example, with funding from the Hearst Foundation, Loyola will purchase a birthing simulator which will allow students to experience a variety of birthing scenarios, practice the diagnosis and treatment of mother and baby, and participate in scenarios like excessive blood loss, cardiac arrest, and stroke. Additional simulation equipment which will allow advanced practice nursing students to build expertise with skills like intubation and management of seizures will also be purchased.
Loyola alumna BECKY ELDREGE'S book The Inner Chapel: Embracing the Promises of God (Loyola Press, 2020) was recognized by the Illumination Awards with a Gold Medal in the category of Spirituality. The Illumination Awards annually recognize the best Christian books, and winners come from well-known publishers and independents with a passion for the Word. Assistant Professor of Religious Education TRACEY LAMONT has been chosen as one of only 14 professors to participate in the 20202021 Teaching and Learning Workshop for Early Career Theological School Faculty run by the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology and Religion located in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Designed to support the teaching and development of early career faculty, the workshop focuses on imagining and cultivating adaptive pedagogies for teaching and learning in the 21st century, creating socially-engaged theological education for the public sphere.
ONLINE Loyola now offers more than 20 online degree programs at the bachelor's, master's, and doctoral levels, in subjects from nursing to finance, psychology, theology, and criminology. We also offer summer courses! Visit loyno.edu/online to learn more.
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UNIVERSITY ADVANCEMENT
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N O I T A I C O S S A I N s ALUM e ti i n tu
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The Loyola University New Orleans Alumni Travel Program
MAGICAL CHRISTMAS MARKETS: Munich from December 2 –9, 2021
For more information, visit alumni.loyno.edu/travel